An act of Imagination involves the comprehension of the manifold as a single whole.

tion to place the objects vividly before it. On the same principle, whatever facilitates the reproduction of the objects which have been consigned to memory, is pleasurable; as for example, resemblances, contrasts, other associations with the passing thought, metre, rhyme, symmetry, appropriate designations, etc. To realize an act of imagination, it is necessary that we grasp up, that we comprehend, the manifold as a single whole: an object, therefore, which does not allow itself, without difficulty, to be thus represented in unity, occasions pain; whereas an object which can easily be recalled to system, is the cause of pleasure. The former is the case when the object is too large or too complex to be perceived at once; when the parts are not prominent enough to be distinctly impressed upon the memory. Order and symmetry facilitate the acts of Reproduction and Representation, and, consequently, afford us a proportional gratification. But, on the other hand, as pleasure is in proportion to the amount of free energy, an object which gives no impediment to the comprehensive energy of Imagination, may not be pleasurable, if it be so simple as not to afford to this faculty a sufficient exercise. Hence it is, that not variety alone, and not unity alone, but variety combined with unity, is that quality in objects, which we emphatically denominate beautiful.

The Beautiful in objects constituted by variety in unity.

As to what is called the Productive or Creative Imagination,this is dependent for its materials on the Senses and on the Reproductive Imagination. The Imagination produces, the Imagination creates, nothing; it only rearranges parts, it only builds up old materials into new forms; and in reference to this act, it ought, therefore, to be called, not the pro

Office of the Plastic Imagination to reconstruct and rearrange.

This reconstruction twofold.

ductive or creative, but the plastic. Now this reconstruction of materials by the Plastic Imagination is twofold; for it either arranges them

Of the

in one representation, or in a series of representations. pleasure we receive from single representations, I have already spoken; it, therefore, only remains to consider the enjoyment we find in the activity of imagination, in so far as this is excited in concatenating a series of representations. I do not at present speak of any pleasure or pain which the contents of these concatenated representations may produce; these are not feelings of imagination, but of appetency or conation; I have here exclusively in view the

1 See above, lect. xxxiii. p. 452. — ED.

feelings which accompany the facilitated, or impeded, energy of this function of the phantasy. Now it is manifest that a series of rep

Conditions of, the pleasurable, as regards the Understanding.

resentations are pleasing:-1°, In proportion as they severally call up in us a more varied and harmonious image; and, 2, In proportion as they stand to each other in a logical dependence. This latter is, however, a condition not of the Imagination, but of the Understanding or Elaborative Faculty; and, therefore, before speaking of those feelings which accompany the joint energies of these faculties, it will be proper to consider those which arise from the operations of the Understanding by itself. To these, therefore, I now pass on.

Function of the Understanding.

Obscure and confused cognitions,how disagreeable.

The function of the Understanding may, in general, be said to bestow on the cognitions which it elaborates, the greatest possible compass (comprehension and extension), the greatest possible clearness and distinctness, the greatest possible certainty, and systematie order; and in as much as we approximate to the accomplishment of these ends, we experience pleasure, in as much as we meet with hindrances in our attempts, we experience pain. The tendency, the desire we have, to amplify the limits of our knowledge, is one of the strongest principles of human nature. To learn is thus pleasurable; to be frustrated in our attempted knowledge, painful. Obscurity and confusion in our cognitions we feel as disagreeable; whereas their clearness and distinctness affords us sincere gratification. We are pained by a hazy and perplexed discourse; but rejoice in one perspicuous and profound. Hence the pleasure we experience in having the cognitions we possessed, but darkling and confused, explicated into life and order; and, on this account, there is hardly a more pleasing object than a tabular conspectus of any complex whole. We are soothed by a solution of a riddle; and the wit which, like a flash of lightning, discovers similarities between objects which seemed contradictory, affords a still intenser enjoyment. Our cognitions may be divided into two classes, the Empirical or Historical, and the Rational. In the former we only apprehend the fact that they are; in the latter, we comprehend the reason why they are. The Understanding, therefore, does not for each demand the same kind or degree of knowledge; but in each, if its demand be successful, we are pleased; if unsuccessful, we are chagrined.

Wit, how pleasing.

Cognitions divided into two classes,

Empirical and Rational.

Sentiment of Truth, and how

- what, pleasurable.

1

From the tendency of men towards knowledge and certainty, there arises a peculiar feeling which is commonly called the Feeling or Sentiment of Truth, but might be more correctly styled the Feeling or Sentiment of Conviction. For we must not mistake this feeling for the faculty by which we discriminate truth from error; this feeling, as merely subjective, can determine nothing in regard to truth and error, which are, on the contrary, of an objective relation; and there are found as many examples of men who have died the confessors of an error they mistook for truth, as of men who have laid down their lives in testimony of the real truth. "Every opinion," says Montaigne, "is strong enough to have had its martyrs." Be' this, however, as it may, the feeling of conviction is a pleasurable sentiment, because it accompanies the consciousness of an unimpeded energy; whereas the counter-feeling, — that of doubt or uncertainty, is a painful sentiment, because it attends a consciousness of a thwarted activity. The uneasy 'feeling which is thus the concomitant of doubt, is a powerful stimulus to the extension and perfecting of our knowledge. The multitude, - the multifarious character, — of the objects presented to our observation, stands in signal contrast with the very limited capacity of the human intellect. This disproportion constrains us to classify; that is, by a comparison of the objects of sense to reduce these to notions; on these primary notions we repeat the comparison, and thus carry them up into higher, and these higher into highest, notions. This process is performed by that function of the Understanding, which apprehends resemblances; and hence originate species and genera in all their gradations. In this detection of the similarities between different objects, an energy of the understanding is fully and freely exerted; and hence results a pleasure. But as in these classes, these general notions, the knowledge of individual existences loses in precision and completeness, we again endeavor to find out differences in the things which stand under a notion, to the end that we may be able to specify and individualize them. This counter-process is performed by that function of the Understanding, which apprehends dissimilarities between resembling objects, and in the full and free exertion of this energy there is a feeling of pleasure.

-

Generalization and Specification, how pleasurable.

The Intellect further tends to reduce the piecemeal and fragmentary cognitions it possesses, to a systematic whole, in other

1 Essais, i. ch. xl. — ED.

Science,-how pleas

ing.

words, to elevate them to a Science; hence the pleasure we derive from all that enables us with ease and rapidity to survey the relation of complex parts, as constituting the members of one organic whole. The Intellect, from the necessity it has of thinking of everything as the result of some higher reason, is thus determined to attempt the deduction of every object of cognition from a simple principle. When, therefore, we succeed or seem to succeed in the discovery of such a principle, we feel a pleasure; as we feel a pain, when the intellect is frustrated in this endeavor.

Deduction from first principles.

Apprehension of adaptation of Means to Ends, how pleasurable.

To the feelings of pleasure which are afforded by the unimpeded energies of the Understanding, belongs, likewise, the gratification we find in the apprehension of external or internal adaptation of Means to Ends. Human intelligence is naturally determined to propose to itself an end: and, in the consideration of objects, it thus necessarily thinks them under this relation. If an object, viewed as a mean, be fitted to effect its end, this end is either an external, that is, one which lies beyond the thing itself, in some other existence; or an internal, that is, one which lies within the thing itself, and consummates its own existence. If the end be external, an object suited to accomplish it is said to be useful. If, again, the end be internal, and all the parts of the object be viewed in relation to their whole as to their end, an object, as suited to effect this end, is said to be perfect. If, therefore, we consider an object in reference either to an external or to an internal end, and if this object be recognized to fulfil the conditions which this relation implies, the act of thought in which this is accomplished is an unimpeded, and, consequently, pleasurable energy; whereas the act of cognizing that these conditions are awanting, and the object therefore ill adapted to its end, is a thwarted, and therefore a painful, energy of thought.

Ends of two kinds, -external and internal. Hence the Useful and the Perfect.

LECTURE XLVI.

AFTER terminating the consideration of the Feelings viewed as Causes, causes of Pleasure and Pain, we en

Recapitulation.

tered, in our last Lecture, on their discussion regarded as Effects, -effects of the various processes of conscious life. In this latter relation, I divided them into two great classes, - the Sensations and Sentiments. The Sensations are those feelings which accompany the vital processes more immediately connected with the corporeal organism. The Sentiments are those. feelings which accompany the mental processes, which, if not wholly inorganic, are at least less immediately dependent on the conditions of the nervous system. The Sensations I again subdivided into two orders, into those which accompany the action of the five Determinate Senses, and into those which accompany, or, in fact, constitute the manifestations of the Indeterminate or Vital Sense.

After

a slight consideration of the Sensations, I passed on to the Sentiments. These I also subdivided into orders, according as they accompany the energies of the Cognitive, or the energies of the Conative, Powers. The former of these I called the Contemplative, the latter, the Practical Feelings or Sentiments. Taking the former, the Contemplative, into discussion, I further subdivided these into two classes, according as they are the concomitants of the lower or Subsidiary, or of the higher or Elaborative Faculty of Cognition. The sentiments which accompany the lower or Subsidiary Faculties, by a final Subdivision, I distributed into those of the Faculty of Self-consciousness and into those of the Imagination,— referring to the Imagination the relative faculty of Reproduction. I ought also to have observed, that, as the Imagination always coöperates in every act of complex perception, and, in fact, bestows on such a cognition its whole unity, under the Feelings of Imagination (or of Imagination and the Understanding in conjunction), would